Page 21 - Southlake FY22 Budget

TrAnSMITTAL LETTEr

general fund

DID YOU KnOW?
The General Fund is the City’s principle operating fund,
and is supported by property tax, sales tax, fees, and other
revenues. These revenues may be used for a variety of Through the City’s use of cash and
purposes, as determined by the City Council. The General aggressive amortization schedules when
Fund budget accounts for core City services such as police debt is issued, the City has reduced the
and fire protection, engineering, planning, finance, and property tax supported debt per capita
administrative oversight. from $3,506 in 2010 to $768 in 2022.

Tax rate. The FY 2022 adopted budget incorporates a
tax rate of $0.39 per $100 valuation, reducing the rate by one and one half cent. The tax rate of $0.39 is
split between General Fund operations and debt service. The allocation for FY 2022 is $0.325 for general
operations and $0.065 for debt service.

One half cent of the tax rate reduction has been taken from the operations portion of the tax rate, and a one
cent reduction is adopted for the debt portion of the tax rate, reflecting the City’s emphasis on cash funding
General Fund capital projects.

The City has not increased its tax rate in twenty consecutive fiscal years.

The 20% homestead exemption will complement the current over-65 exemption of $75,000, disabled
exemption of $75,000, and the over-65 tax freeze. The continued use of the exemptions offset the tax value
on residential properties. The homestead exemption is set at the State-allowed maximum of 20%.

A 20% homestead exemption will reduce an average-valued home in Southlake by $158,794. The property
owner of an average-valued home will see the equivalent of a tax rate reduction of approximately eight cents
per $100 valuation with the exemption applied.

With the homestead exemption in place, and considering the tax rate reduction, the equivalent residential
tax rate on an average-valued home is $0.312.

Taxable value. Figure 6 shows the change in taxable value from FY 2021 and documents the impact of new
construction on the values for FY 2022. Note that the value shown in the table is net of the value assigned
to Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ) #1. For FY 2022, TIRZ taxable value is $508,142,995. The taxable
value also excludes the value related to the City’s homestead and other exemptions.

Southlake’s property values TaxaBle value COmParisOn
have increased appreciably over fy 2021 - fy 2022
time, as shown in Figure 7. The fisCal % inCrease new new
difference between assessed year value PriOr year COnsTruCTiOn COnsTruCTiOn
value and taxable value is as % Of TOTal
primarily due to exemptions. 2021 $7,768,644,007 -0.01% $261,355,087 3.4%
2022 $8,220,731,143 5.8% $155,257,208 1.9%
State law requires a taxing unit
to calculate two rates after Figure 6: This chart compares taxable property values for
FY 2021 with those for FY 2022.
receiving its certified appraisal

20 FY 2022 City of Southlake | BUDGET BOOK
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